Mark Souder: “last week the hearings began on the new Department of Homeland Security. Yesterday my Subcommittee on Criminal Justice…”

“last week the hearings began on the new Department of Homeland Security. Yesterday my Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources held a hearing titled ``Homeland Security Reorganization: What Impact on Federal Law Enforcement and Drug Interdiction?'' Last week in the Committee on Government Reform, our Subcommittees on Civil Service and on National Security held a joint committee hearing, the first ones on homeland security. I wanted to share a few of the things that we have already learned through these hearings as well as in the media the last few days, because we are starting these and we may be actually moving the markup through committee next week. So we are on a fast track. Many people are reacting, ``Aren't you moving awfully fast?'' The answer is yes. The biggest problem we face in the government whenever you tackle one of these things is bureaucratic inertia combined with congressional committee inertia, and everybody can find many reasons not to go ahead. Unless we put this on a fast track to get it out of committee by the July break and out of the full House and Senate by the August break, the likelihood is that this government reorganization will die just like they have every other year.”